The next day.  
Waking up early in the morning, I headed to the training ground. I practiced sensory training, archery, and, with the spare time I had left, I even tried a bit of wild training.

“Raaawr…”  
Raising my hands menacingly toward my reflection in the mirror, I attempted to appear intimidating. Not that I felt I’d made much progress since I first started.

I couldn’t tell if I was improving yet. They said it was training that took years, so it was too soon to feel disappointed. I left the training ground without hesitation.

“What’s that…”  
Across from the training ground, there was a place labeled “Fitness Room.” It reminded me of a gym from my old world, and I’d noticed it every time I passed by.

I knew I should work on my strength too. Maybe just a little taste wouldn’t hurt? As I lingered by the entrance, someone approached me with loud, deliberate steps.

“Gyeoul, let’s play.”  
Seeing Levinas approach with such a bright face caught me off guard. Two hours earlier, I’d sensed someone’s presence while doing sensory training, and now I realized it had been Levinas.

So she’d been waiting there for two hours without moving? I couldn’t believe she’d stayed still for so long just to wait for me.

“Levinas, were you waiting for me?”

“Yep! I didn’t want to interrupt your training, so I waited here!”

“Instead of waiting, you should play with Saebyeok.”  
Speaking of Saebyeok, she didn’t seem to be around. I looked around, but there was no sign of her.

“Saebyeok is still sleeping in the dark!”

“Still?”

“Yeah! They said little cats need lots of sleep, about ten hours a day!”

“Oh…”  
So even her sleep pattern was influenced by her cat instincts. Thankfully, it wasn’t more than twelve hours, or it might interfere with her daily life.

I remembered reading somewhere that kittens could sleep over twelve hours. If Saebyeok slept that much, it would’ve been challenging, but it seemed she was managing just fine.

“But Gyeoul, if you’re a little cat too, why do you only sleep seven hours?”

“Me? I’m not exactly a little cat…”

“Huh?”  
Levinas’s round rabbit eyes went wide with surprise. I couldn’t quite understand what had startled her.

“What’s wrong?”

“I guess Gyeoul is kind of like a middle-sized kitten.”  

“Well… yeah…”  
Levinas wasn’t entirely wrong. Although I was technically an adult, my body was still young. I nodded in agreement, and she clapped her hands with realization.

“Oh, I see!”  

Her expression showed that she’d just figured something out. I didn’t know what it was, so I just scratched my cheek in silence.

“So, Gyeoul, what should we play?”

“Well, how about we check out the fitness room?”

“Fitness room?”  
Levinas pressed her face against the glass door of the fitness room. I joined her, peeking inside. There were machines I recognized and some I’d never seen before.

“Want to go in?”

“Yeah!”  

“But it could be dangerous, so you have to stick close to me, okay?”

“Got it! Sticking close is my favorite thing!”  

Of course, Levinas would say something like that. I felt her tail wagging as we entered the fitness room.

—

I knew that cardio was supposed to come first in fitness training. So we started with the treadmill.

“Hm…”  
It was quite different from the treadmills I knew. It had twice as many buttons, and it was large enough to fit four or five people. This meant Levinas and I could share it.

But how do you use this thing? Not knowing how to operate it, I stood there, staring at the buttons.

“Gyeoul, what’s this?”

“It’s a machine for running, but I don’t really know how it works.”

“Really? Can’t you just press any button?”

“Well… I guess so?”  
It’s just a running machine, so it shouldn’t be too dangerous, right? Following Levinas’s suggestion, I pressed a random button.

Beep! Beep!  
I tried pressing the arrow buttons, which were similar to keyboard keys, but nothing happened, so I pressed some other buttons.

After a few more tries, the treadmill’s belt finally started moving.

“It’s working, Gyeoul!”

“Yeah.”  
Tap, tap, tap—  
We started walking along with the belt. Just as I was considering adjusting the speed, the belt suddenly sped up to an incredible pace.

“Wha…ah!”

“Ahh!”  
The speed was intense. If I stopped, I’d be thrown back a considerable distance. Levinas realized this as well and was running at full speed beside me.

“Save me, Gyeoul! Levinas is gonna fly!”

“Ahhhh…”  

I reached out toward the buttons in desperation, but I couldn’t reach them as I was slowly being pushed backward.

Is there no way to stop this thing? It was a dangerous situation, and I couldn’t do anything.

“Stop, you frog! If you don’t, you’re a bad snake!”

“Th-this is bad…”  
Oh no. I’m definitely going to go flying. Bracing myself, I quickly pulled Levinas into my arms, calculating the potential injuries with my sharp instincts.

At this speed, we’d probably roll over five times. We might even break bones if we collided with the machine.

“Ugh!”  
I closed my eyes, shielding Levinas’s head. But even after waiting for a while, the impact never came. Instead, I felt something soft cushioning us.

“…?”  
Cautiously opening my eyes, I saw Ensia, holding both me and Levinas in her arms. She’d caught us just in time to prevent our fall.

“Are you both alright?”

“Yes, thank you for helping us.”  
At my gratitude, Ensia’s tail began wagging rapidly. Reflexively, my tail joined in and started wagging as well.

“You’re incredible, Gyeoul.”

“What… is?”

“Such a bold training method, even though it’s risky! I admire your bravery.”  

“Uh…”  
Ensia gave me a thumbs-up with both hands, her eyes shining with admiration. I couldn’t bring myself to admit it was just a mistake.

“The issue is that your delicate body can’t keep up with your determination. Maybe you should try a lower setting?”

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”  
I nodded, glancing back at the treadmill, still running at full speed. If I had my old body, I would’ve rolled off and been seriously injured from the start.

‘Even the exercise equipment in this world is ruthless.’

This world truly was intense. Swallowing hard, I looked back at Ensia.

“By the way, how do you lower the speed?”

“…Remarkable.”

“What is?”

“It’s remarkable that you don’t know how to lower the speed.”  

Was that her way of calling me clueless? Embarrassment washed over me, and I felt my face flush.

“Pursuing only top speed without bothering to learn how to slow down… Truly remarkable!”

“No, it’s not like that…”  

“So humble as well…!”  
Ensia’s tail spun in circles, so fast that I could feel the wind pressure.

“Uh… um…”  
Ensia was always so composed, but her thought process was a bit unusual. Still, she was always helpful, and I appreciated that. Following her lead, I spun my tail around too.

—

Meanwhile, in the Dawn Guild’s conference room.  
Three women sat in chairs, looking utterly drained.

Hit, humiliated, and tormented. Though they had taken turns facing these experiences, their mental strength was already stretched to the limit.

What kind of mental fortitude did Gyeoul have to endure all this alone? Worse yet, did she still have even more terrifying memories hidden away?  
A deep despair settled on Jung Yuna’s face.

“Yuna, if it’s too hard, you can stop now.”

“No, I’m fine…”  
Despite the nightmares that haunted her from the pain, it was nothing compared to what Gyeoul had endured. Jung Yuna closed her eyes, steeling her resolve.

“This is bad…”

Tap, tap—  
Chae Juyeon tapped the red mana stone, causing its surface to crack and flake.

“What’s wrong?”

“The mana stone can’t handle it. I think it’ll shatter after one more memory.”

“Wha…?”  
The mana stone, already worn from spirits reading Gyeoul’s memories, was now on the verge of breaking. Yet Midsummer knew that she hadn’t even touched the depths of despair Gyeoul had faced.

‘Gyeoul said she was buried underground, right?’

That horrific memory hadn’t surfaced yet. So far, they’d only glimpsed the beginning, but the end was still out of reach. The realization filled Midsummer with even deeper despair.

“I didn’t expect the trauma to be this severe.”

“Yeah…”

Only one chance remained. Midsummer couldn’t afford to waste this precious opportunity. Before anyone could object, she snatched up the mana stone.

“Midsummer?”

“I’ll take the last one.”

“You just went through one. Are you sure?”

“Of course.”  
Gyeoul was her dear little sister. Even if she couldn’t erase the trauma, she wanted to alleviate it as much as she could. Though she knew her decision was reckless, she pushed that thought aside.

‘Please, let me see something… anything.’

Praying to a god she didn’t believe

 in, Midsummer absorbed the mana from the stone. The unsettling mix of demonic mana and Chae Juyeon’s holy energy pulled her into Gyeoul’s past memories.

“Where… am I?”

Even before opening her eyes, her beastkin ears—borrowed from Gyeoul—twitched. Enhanced hearing told her all she needed to know about this place.

Silence.  
When she opened her eyes, she saw crumbling high-rise buildings. Dried bloodstains and twisted corpses littered the ground below.

Where is this?  
Such a place couldn’t exist on Earth, could it? Seeing the devastated city, Midsummer’s tail stood on end.

She wasn’t yet accustomed to her new senses of ears and tail, but there was no time to focus on that. The ruins stretched out before her, an unearthly sight that should never exist in reality.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep